Networking Infrastructure – The Smart City Story

With the Modi government’s commitment to making 100 smart cities across the country, the Smart city projects are now a reality in India.    There are multiple challenges for the networking infrastructure like security, bandwidth for competing customer applications.  IOT and this connectivity   between people, objects and sensors will be key for an efficiently run smart city. The flow of data for analytics and information for better citizen initiatives will continuously rely on better networking infrastructure.  It is important for smart city builders to create a robust network infrastructure to make the smart city endeavour successful.

Smart city project is projected to touch USD 45 to 50 billion in India over the next five years, according to a recent report by Sustainability Outlook.

Last month, Cisco announced that they are to focus and support 4 smart cities in India. According to  Rajagopal  Sivaramakrishnan, a CCIE who has worked in leading smart city projects in the Middle East, “Cisco has already closed four project proposals in Navi Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur and Lucknow.  While Cisco will provide the networking infrastructure for the projects, it will work with partners who will provide different solutions such as smart street lighting, traffic management, CCTV security surveillance and water management, says the report.”

Networking can be described as the infrastructure for connecting people, objects and sensors.  Each one of them generates data, exchanges information with other, and then decides a set of action. Millions of bits of information flow in the process of transactions and information exchanges.

For the city to be smart, the key requirement is an intelligent network. That not only caries information and helps connect devices and applications, but also helps derive intelligence from it. Essentially, the network itself should be able to generate information for utilising for better citizen and other services.   The position of the moving entity through geo-positioning, call records, nearest spa or hospital are some of the millions of the data needs that is shared at any point in time. Adds Rajagopal,  ”An example is how a traffic management system works.   There are sensors which give various data like the pedestrian indicators, CCTV cameras, traffic lights and other data that flows and in response covers most of the traffic.”

With the right networking technologies and data extraction applications in place, personal devices can provide discrete information when connected on a single platform. “Security in these communication, while keeping up speed is the biggest challenge in the network,” Anantha says.   “There are also a need to separate the control and the data plane at a city level.   There are technologies like CALM ( Communication, Air-Interface, Long and Medium Range) Wireless Automotive Communication, Electronic Toll Collection, Advising Road Signs, Internet in the Car,  Electronic Travel Guide, Inter-Car Communications and many other applications. What they have common is that they have lot of data related to individuals.”

Another aspect of smart cities is IOT. As Internet and associated technologies developed and matured over the last two decades, major players like Cisco, Avaya, IBM and others have made Internet of Things possible today.   This is by far the biggest enabler of the future.  Due to the developments in this area – healthcare, security, traffic management, utility management all will require sensors and networks that carry signals across to vital operators to ensure instant alerts and decision making on a continuous basis. Connected healthcare is possible by creating a flat bed of network where different health sensors can interact with healthcare service providers.   IOT driven services will generate lot of real time data, and that needs secure transmission and storage.

Mobile phones are the ultimate IOT Devices. An example is an UK based application called ‘Love Clean Streets’ that enables connected citizens to directly click pictures at any litter or environmental violation, crime or potential safety hazard and transmit directly to authorities. The report can also be viewed through the mobile application for tracking.   This is a great example of how mobile devices act as sensors (their GPS location tracking acts as a sensor in this example), can help reporting and resolution of issues on a continuously operational basis.

Telecom service providers become an important players in smart city.  Broadband access they can provide gives smart-citizens and enterprises the performance they expect in outdoor places as well as indoors. Small mobile and Wi-Fi hotspots can help ensure good coverage and quality.  Rajagopal says, ”IP routing helps cities transition from being isolated to converged network management for greater efficiency.”  IOT device management saves money and time with remote provisioning, configuration, operating system and firmware management, and device troubleshooting. Cloud technologies reduce expenditure and enable business models that let service providers offer value to end customers.  Social networking applications and citizen service charters allow better connectivity with public administrations, organize communities of contact, and provide them with a new line of communication.

With India opening up its governance information and digitizing records, there is a significant development not only in the sense of public access but also in regards to general transparency. Smart cities make it easier for citizens, enterprises and non-government organizations to access information. Rajagopal says that the mobile internet will become more and more important and will represent a majority of the internet traffic by 2020. The increased use of the mobile internet and the associated rapid increase of the data volume pose new challenges to the existing communication networks. The existing networks no longer provide sufficient capacities for the increasing data volume and growing quality standards. New broadband networks that can meet these requirements are being researched worldwide. The so called future internet will revolutionize communication. Rajagopal says,”It is the goal to configure existing networks to achieve compatibility and interoperability. That way, a flexible networking infrastructure can be created, that allows for seamless data transfer in case of network switch-overs without quality loss and that controls and maintains itself thus providing the highest level of security and reliability.

However, this not only applies to the networking infrastructure but also the content and the availability of data. In addition to current popular applications for smartphones, that mainly serve utilitarian and entertainment needs, smart cities are meant to make data from various government service points, both state and central, and available for everyone.  The State Wide Area Networks will act as main data disseminators. Whether they are about traffic data or environmental data like air and water quality, – communication in the public sector has an immense potential for development and offers new opportunities for making everyday life easier.

There are concerted efforts to increase the availability of governance and citizen information for services. Interfacing with this publicly available data in a virtual city data cloud allows for companies to develop new apps that provide each citizen with access to diffuse quantities of data and statistics via a practical smartphone application. The areas of application are numerous and applicable to almost all areas of life.

The networking strata in a smart city has largely been an entity-non-grata and to an extent assumed to be unimportant, with the main focus on the higher IT and data management layers. The networking layer is highly divided, with different technologies serving different areas. Today, cities are moving beyond simply connecting citizens and businesses to objects and sensors into a world of Internet of Things (IoT). This trend is spurring interest in more integrated smart city solutions and improving the interoperability, security, data privacy, and scalability of communication networks.